Barack Obama wanted three attributes of Australia for America. He wanted Australia's universal healthcare system, its gun laws and its compulsory voting system. These are three of the defining differences between the two societies.

All three seem to work for us! Can it ever be claimed that the absence of these three in the USA do anything other than subtract from the overall quality of life endured (not enjoyed) by the American public?

Barack Obama wanted three attributes of Australia for America. He wanted Australia's universal healthcare system, its gun laws and its compulsory voting system. These are three of the defining differences between the two societies.

All three seem to work for us! Can it ever be claimed that the absence of these three in the USA do anything other than subtract from the overall quality of life endured (not enjoyed) by the American public?

Can it ever be claimed? You do realise that there are people out there who hold different opinions than yours, right?

In the U.S., national healthcare systems like single-payer look good only because three generations of federal meddling have destroyed all of the market incentives that would have made healthcare here affordable even for the poor. Even crippled as it is now those who can afford it get better care than people in countries with national systems -- Canadians who are tired of waiting in line come to the U.S., for example.

Australia's gun bans wouldn't work in the U.S. Before their bans they had fewer than 1% of the number of guns in private hands than the U.S. does, and the left's account of the "Australia miracle" don't actually survive statistical scrutiny. For example, yes, since 1996 the number of homicides has modestly declined in Australia, but during the same period the number of guns in private hands in the U.S. has substantially increased, yet the number of gun-related homicides has declined.

As for compulsory voting, that's illiberal in that there are those who don't vote on principle, and unwise in that requiring participation even by the least informed people will only encourage politicians to engage in even more vacuous emotional appeals than they do now.

Writer, technologist, educator, gadfly.
President of New World University: http://newworld.ac

Barack Obama wanted three attributes of Australia for America. He wanted Australia's universal healthcare system, its gun laws and its compulsory voting system. These are three of the defining differences between the two societies.

All three seem to work for us! Can it ever be claimed that the absence of these three in the USA do anything other than subtract from the overall quality of life endured (not enjoyed) by the American public?

In the U.S., national healthcare systems like single-payer look good only because three generations of federal meddling have destroyed all of the market incentives that would have made healthcare here affordable even for the poor. Even crippled as it is now those who can afford it get better care than people in countries with national systems -- Canadians who are tired of waiting in line come to the U.S., for example.

We have NOT had 3 generations of Federal meddling here: just a Federal one off initiate one generation ago that has worked well ever since.

I cannot comment on apparent dysfunction in the Canadian system as I do not live there and their system is not ours (national health coverage is not of one standard make or model in all countries that have it, you know?) . From anecdotal evidence that has come my way I suspect that the problem does not lie in the fact that they have national health coverage up there but rather because while the coverage is in federal hands the actual building and running costs of the hospitals are in the hands of the provinces. Very likely some of the provinces, possibly due to years of budgetary constraints, have failed to match demand with supply. Since the majority of Canadians who use your US hospital system as an alternative to their own overcrowded ones would likely be able to claim all or most of their costs back from their national health cover when they return to Canada; I suspect that utilizing US hospital services would be a cost effective option - but thanks only to their national health cover. It would also spare their provincial governments the cost-burden of building additional hospital space up there (which could even be why those self-serving provincial governments have not bothered - knowing that US hospitals south of the border will accommodate the overflow of patients .

Australia's gun bans wouldn't work in the U.S. Before their bans they had fewer than 1% of the number of guns in private hands than the U.S. does, and the left's account of the "Australia miracle" don't actually survive statistical scrutiny. For example, yes, since 1996 the number of homicides has modestly declined in Australia, but during the same period the number of guns in private hands in the U.S. has substantially increased, yet the number of gun-related homicides has declined.

Yes, maybe so. But the point you miss is that we have not had a single mass murder shooting since 1996 while in the US you have had umpteen of such horrendous incidents - the most recent being the Las Vegas open air concert massacre.

As for compulsory voting, that's illiberal in that there are those who don't vote on principle, and unwise in that requiring participation even by the least informed people will only encourage politicians to engage in even more vacuous emotional appeals than they do now.

Yep! The effect of this out here in combination with our unique PREFERENTIAL system of voting (I will send you further info on how this works but only if you request it, Steve) means that Australian election campaigns have a broad tendency to be inane because as our elections tend to be won in practice by a small number of ballets cast in a small number of seats; the politicians are inclined to target relatively few swing voters in these marginal seats - who tend to represent the lowest common denominators among the voting public. But so what? Our system of voting seems designed neither for the convenience of the voting public nor for that of the hapless voting officials who then have the arduous responsibility of sorting out and tallying the votes afterwards (and this can take days: I have been there myself). The mission of our voting system is to ensure an absolutely fair result for all of the candidates and parties contesting the election. The outcome is that government in this country has a non-controversial authority it seems to lack in your own.

The difference is that Americans travel abroad seeking a cheaper alternative to surgery done in their home country. They pay out of their own pockets - if not directly then after years of paying exorbitant private health insurgence subscriptions to cover themselves for those type of operations. By contrast a Canadian medical tourist to an adjacent part the United States to his home province is cost covered partly or wholly by his national health cover and usually goes because he gets pissed off waiting for his turn for a hospital bed to come up in his home country.

I have reason to believe that the why the waiting times for optional (and non-emergency) surgery is so long in Canada being because of the ongoing tussle between your provincial and federal levels of government over who is going to bear the cost of funding the additional needed hospital space and staff is; because we have a similar hiatus between the two levels of government out here in Australia. Comparing notes with another Canadian poster to the Asia Times Forums predecessor website to this one years ago, I was repeatedly impressed by just how closely the institutions of government in our two sister dominions are - to the point where you could almost define them as the structural and functional twins. The difference being that out here we are far too remote from the USA and/or other potential source countries of advanced medical treatment to more than an insignificant contributor to international medical tourism.

I believe that very likely US hospitals would be happy to accept Canadian patients; knowing in advance that they were/are going to be paid in full by Canadian health cover. By contrast, the sheer cost of hospital and advanced medical treatment in the US must put that out of reach to a lot of Americans: creating spare hospital beds for Canadian visitors to occupy. Seems like a good match, don't you think?

The difference is that Americans travel abroad seeking a cheaper alternative to surgery done in their home country. They pay out of their own pockets - if not directly then after years of paying exorbitant private health insurgence subscriptions to cover themselves for those type of operations. By contrast a Canadian medical tourist to an adjacent part the United States to his home province is cost covered partly or wholly by his national health cover and usually goes because he gets pissed off waiting for his turn for a hospital bed to come up in his home country.

I have reason to believe that the why the waiting times for optional (and non-emergency) surgery is so long in Canada being because of the ongoing tussle between your provincial and federal levels of government over who is going to bear the cost of funding the additional needed hospital space and staff is; because we have a similar hiatus between the two levels of government out here in Australia. Comparing notes with another Canadian poster to the Asia Times Forums predecessor website to this one years ago, I was repeatedly impressed by just how closely the institutions of government in our two sister dominions are - to the point where you could almost define them as the structural and functional twins. The difference being that out here we are far too remote from the USA and/or other potential source countries of advanced medical treatment to more than an insignificant contributor to international medical tourism.

I believe that very likely US hospitals would be happy to accept Canadian patients; knowing in advance that they were/are going to be paid in full by Canadian health cover. By contrast, the sheer cost of hospital and advanced medical treatment in the US must put that out of reach to a lot of Americans: creating spare hospital beds for Canadian visitors to occupy. Seems like a good match, don't you think?

Well, sort of!

There's no tussle. It's simply budgeting. No province is going to budget so that everyone can have discretionary treatment instantly.

And I am not aware of people getting reimbursed, because the only place I ever hear about this is American right wingers. I have never met, or heard of, anyone who has done it, except for one person that I knew years ago who got only partly reimbursed for treatment of a rather experimental nature in Australia. Her reimbursement was not a given.

Bear in mind that the Fraser Institute is funded in large part by those who would benefit greatly from an American style system, and their fellow travellers, and so is likely to find any way possible to increase those numbers.

It's a fair point. I mean, if the U.S. system were perfect, then all Canadians would use it rather than only those who are tired of waiting in line.

But yes, from overregulation the U.S. system is much more costly than it needs to be, so some in the middle class shop for bargains in lower income countries. In Dominica I can walk in off the street and see a physician for forty U.S. dollars. In the U.S., that's what my co-pay is for an appointment with a nurse-practitioner that I have to make weeks in advance. But in my case I'm going there anyway, it wouldn't be worth it to go there just for that, at least for anything less than surgery or major dental work.

Writer, technologist, educator, gadfly.
President of New World University: http://newworld.ac

The study suggests that another reason could be the long wait-times within the Canadian health care system and suggests this as another possible reason for patients leaving. In a 2014 study by the Commonwealth Fund, a private American health care reform and international health policy organization, Canada had the second-worst overall ranking among the health care systems of 11 industrialized nations and ranked last in the wait-time category. Only the American health care system ranked worse overall.

So Steve, the Canadian system looks good only if you compare it with the US system. It seems, sadly, that among the advanced countries with national health cover, Canada still represents the scrapings at the bottom of the barrel.

In that regard (even more morosely) it provides anti-national health campaigners in the US with ample propaganda ammunition to deter the US from adopting one - selectively ignoring of course the more positive achievements of other advanced countries whose national health cover works better than Canada's. These advocacy organizations should not be allowed to get away with their fraudulent misrepresentation.